Ignoring radical Islam: Dangerous political correctness

President Obama's personal devotion to political correctness might be handicapping the federal government's ability to protect Americans from Islamist terrorists. A comprehensive review of how our intelligence and law enforcement agencies handle the jihadi threat is in order.

It was notable when President Obama went out of his way on Friday to squelch the idea that the terrorists' Muslim faith was in any way related to their acts. He said, condescendingly, "we take care not to rush to judgment - not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people."

Four days later, NBC News reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev himself "has told investigators that he and his brother were motivated by religion." Maybe the ACLU can sue Tsarnaev for stereotyping Muslims.

In 2010, the Pentagon released an 86-page report on the Fort Hood shooting. Though the perpetrator was a radical Islamist who corresponded directly with top al-Qaida terrorist Anwar al Awlaki, the report labeled the attack "workplace violence."

In December of 2011, the administration released a strategic plan for dealing with domestic terrorism. It made not a single mention of radical Islamism. That was despite the fact that in 2010 the former heads of the 9/11 Commission released a report warning that the administration was not taking the threat of domestic terrorism from radical Islamists seriously.

Famed national security reporter Bill Gertz reported on Tuesday that U.S. officials and private counterterrorism consultants say the FBI's failure to nab Tamerlan Tsarnaev after Russia alerted the United States to his radicalization in 2011 was the direct result of administration directives to remove radical Islam as a terrorism indicator.

"The fact is religion has been expunged from counterterrorism training," Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism specialist with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Gertz. "The FBI can't talk about Islam and they can't talk about jihad."

Nor will the President. He goes to great lengths to refrain from making a connection between radical Islam and terrorism. It's as if he thinks his job is to protect radical Muslims from Americans, not the other way around.